According to Variety magazine, the 60-minute forum will be carried on
MTV channels reaching nearly 380 million households worldwide. "I look
forward to speaking one-on-one with young people from across the world
in this unique forum to discuss world affairs," Powell said.

Couldn't the State Department have found a "unique forum" that wasn't so
abysmally beneath the dignity of America's top diplomat?

Powell should have followed in his boss's classy footsteps. During the
2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush wisely declined MTV's
invitation to participate in its vacuous "Choose or Lose" election
special - a "unique forum" where teens grill presidential candidates
about such vital international issues as their underwear styles and
musical tastes.

Bush's campaign advisers were right not to dignify the left-leaning
entertainment channel with the GOP candidate's presence. (Recall that
MTV threw two inaugural balls for Bill Clinton and hosted a cocktail
party for Hillary Clinton, but later refused to recognize our president
during the 2001 inaugural celebrations.) Bush was also right to avoid
cheap pandering to the youth vote. By contrast, Al Gore participated
approvingly in a televised "Choose or Lose" forum that hyped his, uh,
sex appeal and prior drug use. During the broadcast, a young MTV "news"
anchor narrated a glowing biographical segment on Gore, which noted that
"he's into PDA [public displays of affection with wife Tipper]" and that
"he listened to rock, rode a motorcycle and even smoked the herb
[marijuana]."

The segment punctuated Gore's youthful drug experimentation - a hit with
MTV viewers, no doubt - by showing a grainy video of a Gore look-alike
exhaling smoke. What will the producers do to get viewers interested in
Afghanistan? Show al Qaeda look-alikes sitting around their caves
exhaling opium smoke?

MTV understands well that the medium is the message. So should Powell.
Any coherent message he wants to send to young people about the war on
terrorism will be drowned in a medium that specializes in moral
equivalence and cultural rot. I remind the State Department that among
the cherished entertainment milestones MTV boasted about during its 20th
anniversary celebration last year were:

A spring break special hosted by bottom-of-the-barrel talk-show host
Jerry Springer, in which "three couples take it all off (except for some
decorative whipped cream) and strut their stuff."

Rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard riding in a limousine with an MTV camera
crew in tow to cash a welfare check. (The Wu-Tang Clan rapper, a
convicted felon who has fathered 13 illegitimate children, was
imprisoned last summer for possession of crack cocaine.)

And the cesspool continues to swirl. MTV touts the latest installment of
its dumb stunt show, "Jackass," with the following description: "Johnny
Knoxville and the Jackass crew horse around in a large pile of
[excrement] culled from a local stable." On its website, MTV posts
sexually explicit pictures from the "steamy" soap opera, "Undressed,"
alongside Hustler-style episode summaries: "Tiki bets Bart she can hook
up with Chuck. When Lola introduces Sandra to the "boyfriend," Sandra
has her first orgasm. When Tucker moves in, Tucker and Lauren get
together."

This is the kind of romper room into which the State Department has
decided to send one of the world's most widely recognized and respected
dignitaries. What kind of herbs are they smoking over there? Powell's
hook-up with MTV is an embarrassment to the White House, and to all
young Americans interested in a serious forum for discussion of the war
on terrorism.

Do us a favor, Secretary Powell. Pull the plug on this totally uncool
performance.